^zhurnaly

Howdy, pilgrim! No ads — you're in the ^zhurnal (that's Russian for "journal") — see ZhurnalyWiki for a Wiki edition of individual items; see Zhurnal and Zhurnaly for quick clues as to what this is all about; see Random for a random page. Briefly, this is the diary of ^z = Mark Zimmermann ... previous volume = 0.9933 ... complete list at bottom of page ... send comments & suggestions to "z (at) his (dot) com" ... click on a title link to go to that item in the ZhurnalyWiki where you can edit or comment on it ... thank you!

12.6 mi @ ~13.7 min/mi

26.2 mi @ ~14.5 min/mi

"We're all running longer than we slept last night!" says a fellow traveler during mile 2 of the 2018 Marine Corps Marathon. Some rested more than others: for bonus-bragging-mileage Roadkill rose at 0300 and did a quiet solo 12+ miles from his home to the event, setting out at 0415. He takes a few wrong turns but doesn't get too lost along the way. Lovely statues along 16th Street NW in DC glow in spotlight beams. Songs by Peter Gabriel ("In Your Eyes") and Sophie Hawkins ("As I Lay Me Down") and Cat Stevens ("Peace Train") play on his mental Walkman. The flag above the White House is at half-staff.

Drs K-Rex and K2 encounter long delays for the shuttle bus to get them to the race. While Roadkill awaits, who should appear but buddies Santa Steve and Joyful Joyce?!

Dawn Patrol is reunited at the security checkpoint and crosses the starting line ~25 minutes after the MCM howitzer announces the race's beginning. No worries! We dash along briskly, trying to hold back but registering a 9:55 mile #3 and finishing the first 10 miles in ~2 hours. Too fast, as usual! Extended walk breaks begin and we take turns trying to persuade one another to go on ahead. But since "Leave No One Behind!" is Rule #1, that's not a happening thing.

Barry Smith passes us at mile ~12. The "Blue Mile" commemorates military fallen in their country's defense. After mile ~15 crowds begin to thin. The right ITB develops "issues" for all three of us! Knees also begin to ache, and headaches come and go.

Yep, it really is all good. We make the cutoffs with 20+ minutes to spare. The weather is great. Roadkill's beard gets countless shout-outs. Spectators give us pretzels, Twizzlers, and orange slices.

To warn runners behind us we signal walk breaks by raising hands. Roadkill sings bits of Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", and a fragment of Taio Cruz's "Dynamite" ("I throw my hands up in the air sometimes / Saying Ayo! Gotta let go!'"). Costumed superheroes Mr and Mrs Incredible give runners high-fives and fist-bumps. Nearing the finish line we pause for photos.

With so much to be grateful for we thank each other and smile every mile. Polite, helpful Marines are ubiquitous. Leaves are turning orange and yellow and brown; clouds are dramatic. At mile ~22 we get the great news that Dr Stephanie has just finished the Javalena Jundred 100 miler.

The Dawn Patrol has run more than 2000 miles together, and the past few years have been the happiest of our careers. Such great good in this world!

From "5 for the Day: Fight Scenes" by Matt Zoller Seitz (Slant, 2006-11-10), insightful commentary on Jackie Chan's out-of-the-box choreography in the film Drunken Master (1978):

... Yes, I know, it's difficult—maybe impossible—to single out one Jackie Chan fight scene as his best. But since Chan absolutely must be represented on this list, I'm picking the climactic showdown from the original Drunken Master because it marks the moment when Chan came into his own as a movie star, a fight choreographer, a clown and an icon; which is to say it's the moment when Jackie Chan became Jackie Chan. In this film by director and fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping, Chan's character, a wastrel screwup, flees town to escape his the wrath of his father, the owner of a martial arts gym, and ends up studying with the title character, Sun Hua Chi (Yuen Siu Tien). Sun teaches Wong the building blocks of movie chopsocky—including Tiger, Crane and Monkey style—as well as a demanding, multifaceted fighting technique called "The Eight Drunken Immortals"—one of which, The Drunken Miss Ho, is rejected by Wong on the grounds that it's too sissified. Over time, Wong becomes a skilled fighter, but still gets his ass whipped by the nomadic assassin Thunderfoot (Hwang Jang-Lee). At the master's urging, Wong returns home to reconcile with his dad, who's been hurt in a fight with Thunderfoot, and challenges the assassin to a duel (what else can he do, sue him?).

In the ensuing fight, Wong, who can't seem to land a decent blow on his opponent, jettisons the remnants of his childish pride and improves upon his master's teaching, switching between the all the styles he's learned (particularly seven of the eight Drunken Gods) with such speed and inventiveness that Thunderfoot is surprised and overwhelmed. The turning point comes when he embraces the previously anathema eighth style, The Drunken Miss Ho, with pop-eyed gusto, cooing, mincing, skipping and flouncing while battering Thunderfoot with his fists, fingers, knuckles and feet. The scene's graceful mix of head-to-toe long shots and slingshot zooms showcases the most playful slapstick this side of a Buster Keaton two-reeler. These fighters don't just hover in the air on wires while bloodying each others' scowling faces; they grapple, flip, wriggle, scoot, crabwalk, dive and roll, and allow themselves a whopping double-take when the other guy executes a surprising but effective move. The scene is delightful not just for its dramatic potency, but its evolutionary significance within Chan's career. As the onetime student applies his master's teaching while discovering his own warrior identity, Chan perfects a screen persona that would carry him through the next three decades—a sweet, goofy, machismo-free alternative to the Spartan coolness of China's kung fu standard-bearer, Bruce Lee, who was physically Chan's equal, but would never would have agreed to a fight scene that involved batted eyelashes and teasing pelvic thrusts.

From former President Jimmy Carter, in the 1977 collection A Government as Good as Its People:

"... A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. ..."

(from a speech "Warm Hearts and Cool Heads" given in New York City on 14 Oct 1976; cf An Hour Before Daylight (2004-05-25), ...)

Useful suggestions from "Physics Vs. Philosophy: Really?" by Marcelo Gleiser (2012), discussion of the ongoing food-fight between philosophers and physicists about the nature of everything and nothing:

... The central dogma of science is that nature is intelligible: with the diligent application of reason we can construct explanations of natural phenomena that can be tested and falsified. Within this framework, no explanation can be deemed final: as concepts and measuring tools evolve, so do our explanations of the world. ...

and

... we are making enormous progress in our understanding of the universe, and we can even conceive of models where the universe can be explained as a zero-energy fluctuation out of the quantum vacuum. But why not say just that, and not extrapolate this over to the much more ambitious and, as of yet, unjustified claim that science provides a solution to the first cause. Current experimental knowledge of physical processes remains some 15 orders of magnitude below the energies prevalent near the beginning.

Given that there is so much that we don't know, humility is at least advisable. ...

Emily Riehl: So I'm a category theorist, and every category theorist's favorite theorem is the Yoneda Lemma. It says that a mathematical object of some kind is uniquely determined by the relationships that it has to all other objects of the same type. In fact, it's uniquely characterized in two different ways. You can either look at maps from the object you're trying to understand or maps to the object you're trying to understand, and either way suffices to determine it.

This is an amazing theorem. There's a joke in category theory that all proofs are the Yoneda Lemma. I mean, all proofs reduce to the Yoneda Lemma.

The reason I don't want to talk about it today is two-fold. Number one, the discussion might sound a little more philosophical than mathematical, because one thing that the Yoneda Lemma does is that it orients the philosophy of category theory. Secondly, there's this wonderful experience you have as a student when you see the Yoneda Lemma for the first time, because the statement you'll probably see is not the one I just described but sort of a weirder one involving natural transformations from representable functors, and you see it, and you're like, "Okay, I guess that's plausible, but why on earth would anyone care about this?" And then it sort of dawns on you, over however many years, in my case, why it's such a profound and useful observation. So I don't want to ruin that experience for anybody.

~62 mi @ ~18 min/mi

Adventure? "I'm in!" What else could a dear friend say? In Mary's case, "Yes, and I'll crew for you!" How could anyone turn down such an awesome gift?

Prelude

Roadkill's latest ultramarathon begins with a text-chat:

"What do you want for your birthday, Mary?""For you to come visit me again!"

And with that begins a search for trail runs, marathons, ultras, or other "cover for action" to motivate a journey to New Hampshire. The Vermont 100 adventure of July was so much fun together, even with a DNF (Did Not Finish) at mile 30. "Fail. Fail again. Fail better."? — sounds like a plan!

The Ghost Train Trail Race on 20-21 October 2018 is within an hour's drive of Andy & Mary's new home in New Hampshire. It's an out-and-back along a rail-trail, inexpensive, and all entry fees go toward the noble cause of trail conservation. The event's spirit is ultra-low-key. Officially, one cannot DNF ("Did Not Finish") — since the Race Director says that whenever you decide to stop, that's your event distance! What's not to like?

Snag, as there always is: the Ghost Train ultra is full, and Roadkill joins the Waitlist with ~150 people ahead of him. Odds seem ultra-long against getting in. Hmmmmm ... maybe next year?

Surprise: a week before the event a message — "Congratulations - you have been selected ..." — arrives from the race organizers! Apparently the Waitlist was populated by ghosts?

Scramble: Coordinate with Mary, who instantly volunteers to crew and support, pick up and drop off, host and drive. Confirm with DW/Paulette and the office that nothing fatal will happen during a brief absence. Check train and airline schedules. Make reservations. Pack suitcase full of running gear.

Spirit: As soon as we arrive at the starting line, Mary and Roadkill know that the Ghost Train will be fun. Take Darryl Hamel's outfit ... please!.

The Ghost Train course passes by a big rock. Two kids sit on top of it, blowing a wooden train-whistle. Congenitally hyperoptimistic-hypomanic Roadkill begins to sing, with thanks to Yusuf Islam aka "Cat Stevens":

Now I've been happy lately Thinking about the good things to come And I believe it could be Something good has begun

Oh, I've been smiling lately Dreaming about the world as one And I believe it could be Someday it's going to come

'Cause out on the edge of darkness There rides a Peace Train Oh, Peace Train take this country Come take me home again ...

Yes, and so many other wonderful Ghost Train memories! * "Orange is transformative!" and "Orange you glad you came?" * Joke: Son says, "Dad, are we pyromaniacs?" Dad replies, "Yes, we are, Son!" * New friends Tiffany Fischer and Astrid Hoyt and so many more ... * Oreos and Cheetos * Sharing naughty jokes in the woods * Ghosts marking the course turns * Pumpkins carved in diverse patterns, with scented candles * Big yellow "K "at the 100 kilometer turn around marker * Runner, 7 weeks pregnant, names her baby "Blueberry" for its size!

Roadkill suggests to the RD that next year's Ghost Train theme song should be the classic Beastie Boys piece, slightly modified to read "No Sleep till Brookline!"

Split Data

location

miles

clock time

elapsed time

avg pace

split pace

Tevya (0)

0

9:01am

00:00:00

--:--

--:--

Milford (1)

7.5

10:45am

01:45:37

14:04

14:04

Tevya (1)

15

12:44pm

03:44:25

14:57

15:50

Milford (2)

22.5

2:49pm

05:49:40

15:32

16:42

Tevya (2)

30

4:56pm

07:56:49

15:53

16:57

Milford (3)

37.5

7:05pm

10:05:34

16:08

17:10

Tevya (3)

45

9:24pm

12:24:58

16:33

18:35

Milford (4)

52.5

11:43pm

14:43:35

16:49

18:28

Tevya (4)

60

2:15am

17:15:19

17:15

20:13

Tevya (end)

62+

3:05am

18:04

17:29

24:30

Envoi

"The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway" — apt subtitle of Siobhan Roberts' portrait Genius at Play. Also apt: the thickness and chaos of the book. Conway(born 1937, still living) was not just a mathematician; he was a polymath, especially in areas involving playful patterns. Not always a nice person, with character flaws hinted at and sometimes exposed by his biographer. Unfaithful to his wives, unreliable to his colleagues, untruthful to his listeners. Full of semi-honest stories, by turns supremely seductive and self-deprecating. Dickensian (cf Harold Skimpole) in irresponsibility about financial matters. Extraordinarily lazy and creative. Pulled countless all-nighters, sometimes productively. Both brilliant and sporadic in his research, suicidal and surreal in his personality. Possibly correct in his proverb, "The day can be saved with 45 minutes of work!" And definitely deeply meta!

~4.5 mi @ ~16 min/mi

"They offer you Kevlar blankets at the finish line ... wait, I mean mylar blankets - the Detroit Marathon isn't that tough!" Dawn Patrol treads cautiously in the rain, careful not to slip-trip given major race plans in weeks to come. Three Drowned Rats pause at Starbucks, where a GPS-indoors-glitch awards them a bonus half-mile. K-Rex tells of winning her daughter's help to tote and stack cords of wood over the weekend via the comment: "Exercise will make you healthier!" K2 reports on surviving a scary equestrian near-collision after a big jump over oxers yesterday.

"Farnham Street" seems to be an interesting place where one can read about "...such topics as mental models, decision making, learning, reading, and the art of living." There's self-promotion, yes, and yet there's also self-improvement. And as FS head Shane Parrish said in an interview, "I try to make friends with the eminent dead, like David Foster Wallace, Ben Franklin, Seneca, Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius. There's a lot to be said for also hanging around smart people who are living." From a post last year, "The Difference between Amateurs and Professionals":

Amateurs stop when they achieve something. Professionals understand that the initial achievement is just the beginning.

Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a process.

Amateurs think they are good at everything. Professionals understand their circles of competence.

Amateurs see feedback and coaching as someone criticizing them as a person. Professionals know they have weak spots and seek out thoughtful criticism.

Amateurs value isolated performance. Think about the receiver who catches the ball once on a difficult throw. Professionals value consistency. Can I catch the ball in the same situation 9 times out of 10?

Amateurs give up at the first sign of trouble and assume they're failures. Professionals see failure as part of the path to growth and mastery.

Amateurs don't have any idea what improves the odds of achieving good outcomes. Professionals do.

Amateurs show up to practice to have fun. Professionals realize that what happens in practice happens in games.

Amateurs focus on identifying their weaknesses and improving them. Professionals focus on their strengths and on finding people who are strong where they are weak.

~19.7 mi @ ~16.3 min/mi

"Like Fight Club without the hitting!" - "Welcome to the Dark Side!" - "I'm in!" - "We get lost, and we find stuff!" - "Leave no one behind!" - "If you say 'Run', we'll run with you!" K2 and Roadkill brainstorm new mottoes for Dawn Patrol as we circle Clopper Lake. A big whitetail dear dances away through the brush, and suddenly ultra-comrade Anton Struntz materializes! Small world: the last time we saw each other was at the 2015 Marine Corps Marathon when he recited the St Crispin's Day speech from Henry V (see 2015-10-25 - Marine Corps Marathon).

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" Trail talk ranges widely today, existential-philosophical to pizza. (Is there a difference?) Beastie Boys' "No Sleep till Brooklyn" plays in Roadkill's mental jukebox; K2 suggests countering it with CCR's "Run through the Jungle". A long freight train rumbles across the high Seneca Aqueduct and we pause for photos beneath it, and at a dramatic outcropping above the stream. Bright new graffiti decorates the underside of MD-355.

"Oxer - it's a type of horse jump with two rails!", K2 explains, and answers naive questions about equestrianism. We arrive back at Sterman Elementary school DFL or nearly so, having added some bonus mileage within Seneca Creek State Park. A Roadkill dizzy spell is quickly cured by a K2 gift of Strawberry-Kiwi gel. Only one fall along the way - it's all good!

~5.6 mi @ ~14.7 min/mi

"Worst flight of my life!" says K2 of her wild ride home last night through thunderstorms, as remnants of Hurricane Michael collided with a powerful cold front. Glad she made it back safely! Dawn Patrol zig-zags around puddles and fallen branches on a shivery-brisk trek. Orion stands high in the clear southern sky. Three pairs of shiny eyes peer at us from the underbrush near Dead Run - a raccoon family reunion?!

"It's ... ah ... energy-efficient?" K-Rex strives to find a politely-positive description for nouveau-prison architecture that features slit windows and a sawtooth roof line. Gusty winds have blown down a basketball backboard. Halloween ghosts dangle from trees. A giant spider climbs a cargo-net web to invade the upper story of a home.

... sometimes, if you learn how to just stand there, at what the Zen people in the Zen archery world call the point of highest tension — nobody could string or hold back Odysseus's bow except Odysseus, nobody — but when you can stand at the point of highest tension with your thoughts going nowhere and hold it in something bigger, wakefully, not necessarily in a dream, but actually wakefully, interesting connections seem to appear because they're already here.

But we are in some sense blind to them because our thinking itself acts like lenses and prevents us from seeing orthogonal opportunities, opportunities that are rotated in some way in relationship to the passive assumptions, to what's already known. ...

~5.0 miles @ ~15.5 min/mi

"Mom, you ran a long race - you can have my leftovers!" K-Rex recalls her young daughter's kindness after yesterday's Army 10 Miler; the little girl also whispers to her big brother, "Say, 'congratulations'!". So sweet! A pair of rabbits watches Dawn Patrol pass on the way to iced coffee at Starbucks.

~15.6 mi @ ~14.3 min/mi

"Your Mother!", new punchline to a series of ultrarunning jokes too naughty to repeat here, involving chafing and traveling vast distances. Likewise "Hideous!", a term of judgment re hairstyle. (Don't ask!)

In contrast, far happier characterization of a dear friend's lovely appearance: "Radiant!" Slow-Twitch and J-Bird meet Gayatri and Roadkill for a humid ramble along Rock Creek, walking the hills, exchanging recipes, analyzing politics, sharing plans. In KenGar eponymous Ken greets us, then rematerializes 4 miles later with Rebecca. In between, iced coffee from Java Nation fuels an inspection tour of Kensington homes and carved-stump statuary. A skeletal-hungry Halloween horse reminds us of food.

"We've all got issues." - "No, I don't!" - "Hmmm, maybe THAT is your issue?" Psychoanalysis goes meta and then meta-meta. We exaggerate how much we irritate one another ("You put my utensils away while I was still eating!" - "We need to exit in 3 miles and you're still driving in the wrong lane!" - "You turned the light off while I was in the room!") and vow to help our fellow-travelers work on self-awareness and patience. Feminine charms of Slow-Twitch sit high atop her shoulders today; they turn out to be tasty tangerines, stored in pack pouches. J-Bird massages knots in chiseled calf muscles.

"I ran my best 5k in 1936!" Or did he say "19:36"? Either interpretation is incredible. We share thankfulness for friends, families, fun together, and mutual aid in the quest for enlightenment. ("Your Mother needs more of that!")

After somebody walks through Hell — survives multiple crises that could have literally killed them or left them a forever-crippled husk — they look around and ask, "Is this all?"

In the growing gaps between feeling infinite gratitude, they're disappointed. Justice demands that they should have gotten something for their escape, some new superpower or magic ring or spiritual revelation or deep wisdom ... or at least major recognition, a medal and a handshake and a round of applause for returning unbroken and sorta-mostly-kinda OK, if not fully recovered.

Instead, they're thrown back into the trenches, sent out to fight again, to punch the clock and earn a living and pay the bills to support their family. Nobody seems to notice. They're penalized for low productivity during the time they were away. They're exhausted, and they still ache from damage that will never heal.

It's unfair, it's undeserved, it's totally tragic.

And what can they do about it? Well, perhaps there's nothing to do, yet three things to be:

be thankful — try to fill the dark gaps with conscious awareness of having been blessed, for a little longer, with more life and time to explore and explain, to create and connect, to learn and to love ... and be happy for tiny gifts of lovingkindness from those few fellow souls who do recognize and constantly cherish one's survival ...

be accepting — attempt to practice "radical acceptance", see clearly all that happened, and embrace it ... cradle it with self-compassion, hold and hug it tight, and allow the light to enter through the wounds ...

be awake — strive to see the infinite beauty that pervades the world, in the small and large, the hard and soft, around and between and within everything that is ... and live in that "state of constant total amazement" ...

~15.4 mi @ ~20.4 min/mi

"Hyponatremia!" Kase Guevara Orgeron tells of a scary experience at the Boston Marathon some years ago. Tassie and Roadkill are doing one lap of the VHTRC PB&J 50k course in Prince William Forest Park on a humid-warm day. We compare notes re swollen fingers, debate the pronunciation of "Reynaud's Syndrome", analyze electrolyte drinks and capsules, and concur that although everybody is different some common principles commonly apply. Kase and Roadkill ran together almost five years ago (see 2013-11-16 - MCRRC Stone Mill 50 Mile Race) — maybe we will again at an ultra next month?

"The square root of 365 is about 19.1", Will Rohrs declares. We discuss statistical fluctuations and the Birthday Paradox, define "technical trail" (one where you can't eye the lovely scenery as often as the ground in front of your feet), compare injuries, and philosophize about the nature of mind, dementia, and what it means to be human. Will met Roadkill at an ultramarathon ~13.5 years ago (see HAT Run 2005). Small world!

"Look at that toadstool!" Fungi proliferate in the woods, including one scarlet heart-shaped 'shroom. Leaf mold in the air and blister issues slow our pace. We play the "Don't say 'Sorry', say 'Thank You'!" game, and finish cheerfully in time for afternoon pizza with ultra-comrades J-Bird and Slow-Twitch — a happy ending for Tassie's first long trail run!

~7.5 mi @ ~13.2 min/mi

"You have to be your own best advocate!"

"Your professors are human beings too!"

"College is a great place to find out what you don't want to do with your life!"

Dr Mandy asks for big lessons-learned from higher education; Drs K2, Roadkill, and K-Rex offer suggestions. A rabbit's eye glints in headlamp's beam as Dawn Patrol trots toward the sunrise. We turn back at Old Dominion Drive, when the combination of no sidewalks and fast traffic get a wee bit scary.

~6.4 mi @ ~14.5 min/mi

"Elbows on the table? Why not?" K-Rex reports her son's skepticism about dining customs. Under Orion and a waning moon, Dawn Patrol cruises the streets of northern McLean and makes plans for next weekend's races (the Army 10 Miler and PB&J 50k). K2 points out the mansion on Lupine Lane that burned on 27 Dec 2014, recently rebuilt and ready for sale. (see 2014-12-31 - Happy Old Year and 2015-01-02 - Lupine Loop for historical observations)

"Halloween is coming!" Decorations have begun to appear, led by front-porch pumpkins. Near the town Library, construction/renovation of the Community Center continues apace. Cool weather brings out dozens of early dog-walkers, cheerful as they and their pups greet us.

~17.7 mi @ ~16 min/mi

"Stone Age password generators?" K2 speculates about the function of massive rocks on Fishers Lane with odd word combinations. (MOONPLASTER? STARSAILOR?) We scratch our heads. J-Bird and Slow-Twitch lead the way to famed author F. Scott Fitzgerald's grave. Subsequent discussion of literary-country matters includes libraries, speed-reading, phonics, pop-up books, and Braille. We return K2 to her car after ~9 miles so she can make morning commitments, then continue east into Kensington where we admire cute homes.

"Do nice people tend to become ultrarunners, or does ultrarunning make people nice?" Could the causal relationship flow both ways? We cheer participants in today's "Rock The Creek Relay" and ponder doing the whole 29 miles ourselves, rather than as part of a 6 person team. Hmm!

Back in North Bethesda kind Tassie and her tripod pup Bubba take us to the amazing Grosvenor Market where we buy ice cream and diet soda. Passing Georgetown Prep School loud football-field noises remind Slow-Twitch of similar sounds during the Tesla-Hertz 100 miler on Long Island, and the Bruce Springsteen concert near the Beast of Burden 100 miler course near Buffalo. Such great memories!

... explained as an "optimistic saying immortalized by the Nigerian rapper Kida Kudz. It means, 'At the end of the day, we will be all right'" according to an 18-year-old young lady named Victory. See also the Kida Kudz video and the essay by Onyl Ukorah "We Go Dey Alright Last Last!" about profound hopefulness — so good!

~20 miles @ ~17 min/mi

"They don't have biometrics for your bum!" We speculate that answering an emergency Call of Nature near a security camera might be anonymous, at least for now. Slow Twitch and Court Jester lead the way down the Bethesda Trolley Trail, detouring to serenade Tassie who can't join us today. At McDonalds we pause for coffee. Today is Roadkill's birthday, and we ramble without plan. Five miles? Ten? Union Station? Rock Creek? Whatever!

"A fox!" K2 points out the creature eyeing us from a ridge above the Capital Crescent Trail. Polite cyclists warn before they pass. The Potomac River is high, flooding the Georgetown waterfront, as trees and debris float in the current. At the National Zoo volunteers lead miniature donkeys through crowds of tourists; a gorilla lolls in the sun on a high platform. At mile ~20 we stop at Starbucks, share Pink Drinks and Dragon Drinks, and declare victory. An Über returns us to the start. GPS glitches in tunnels and restrooms add ~1.8 bonus miles.

~7.8 mi @ ~13.3 min/mi

"Cooked peas!" - "Cardamom coffee!" - "Corn not on the cob!" - "Pumpkin beer!" - "Canned green beans!" Dawn Patrol discusses favorite foods and their antitheses. De gustibus, etc. Light rain falls as we ramble to the end of Woodland Drive, where at the summit of majestic Mount Daniel (~460') our way is blocked by a construction site. K-Rex and K2 make inquiries of a local native, who reveals to the explorers a muddy path leading back to civilization, aka the next neighborhood. Half a mile later, the intrepid trio is inside a Starbucks. Whew!

"Maybe we should change our name to 'The Lost and Found Patrol'? We find stuff, and we get lost a lot!" On Route 7 we pass the spot where K2 rescued a dropped drivers license ~3 months ago. K-Rex's kids are already designing their Halloween costumes; one has begun to keep a diary. Fame will soon follow ...

~10.1 mi @ ~13.9 min/mi

"Are we on a frolic or a detour?" Nowhere Man asks. In tort law it makes a difference! (cf Frolic and Detour) Regardless, on a rainy Sunday morning we ramble up Sligo Creek, pausing to photograph miniature garden sculptures. A little old lady ("Shhh - she's a secret ultrarunner!") emerges from a dirt path at one side of a dead-end street. Adventure! The narrow muddy trail leads to Breewood Neighborhood Park, and from there the track at Northwood High School beckons.

"Look Before You Go - Pay Attention as You Cross Road", curbside art admonishes, with a dynamic drawing of a car bursting out from underground. Apparently high school students still need to be reminded! We run a lap in honor of the new World Decathlon Record set a week ago by Kevin Mayer. Another dirty digression gets us to Colt Terrace Neighborhood Park, and then via wet bikepaths and sidewalks back home.

Beautiful thoughts by John Sterman, professor and leader of the MIT System Dynamics Group:

In my view, the real purpose and real value of a Sloan education is to develop [students'] capabilities as systems thinkers and the leadership abilities to use those capabilities to build the world we truly want. Not for the short run. Not to boost the bottom line, or to pump up the stock price. But to create the world we truly want, for the long run.

... from "The Beer Game" by Peter Dizikes, MIT Technology Review, October 2013.

~17.7 mi @ ~16.3 min/mi

"It's the 'Pink Drink' — and you should try the 'Dragon Drink' too!" At Starbucks the lady in front of us picks up a strawberry-açaí coconut-milk refresher; a staffer also recommends the magenta mango-dragonfruit blend. Iced coffee during a morning run feels so pedestrian now!

"You've done your Good Deed for the day!" the Kensington policeman congratulates us. Crabby finds a lost drivers license on the street, and Tassie figures out where the owner's apartment is. We divert to drop it off. Mission accomplished!

"It's a gun shop and a model train store!" somebody notes, and recalls visiting there for one but not the other. Someone else tries to tell a mildly risqué model train joke as we attack the hills of Kensington Heights (or vice versa). Early morning rain leaves puddles and humidity. Time-on-feet is today's sole goal, so we explore new cut-through paths, get lost and found again, backtrack, and pause for selfies by varied sculptures. Trail talk ranges widely over politics and current events, injuries and training, upcoming races and personal plans.

"Does that poison ivy rash itch?" — "Only when you ask about it!" A local 8k race provides an opportunity to applaud passing runners; a chipmunk hesitates, then dashes away. Slurpees from 7-11 are cooling but sit heavy in stomachs. A big buck bends low to rub velvet off his antlers against a fallen tree beside Rock Creek.

~5.6 mi @ ~12.4 min/mi

"Those stair lights would be great going down," K-Rex observes. "And they'd be blinding going up!" Friday's Dawn Patrol meanders through Pimmit Hills and critiques the latest trends in suburban architecture. Most mini-mansions under construction seem to devote the majority of their ground floors to multi-car garages. We dodge around kids waiting for school bus rides, cut through a neighborhood park, and admire lawn ornaments.

Suggestions from Mark Volkmann's "Getting Things DONE summary", nicely capturing some of productivity-guru David Allen's recommendations of practices to adopt:

Habits

Always have paper and a writing instrument with you. Ideas can come at any time. Process these notes as new inputs ASAP so they aren't lost and are considered when planning next actions.

Always bring something from your "To Read/Review" stack to meetings. Meetings nearly always start late and the time spent waiting can be used to catch up on reading.

Daily Practices: determine if anything described in the following locations needs to be addressed today.

43 Folders (sets of things to address on a given day within the next month, or in a given month during the next year)

your calendar

your "Action" email folder

flagged items in your next actions list

Periodic Practices

At least once per week, review all incomplete items in your lists and flag the ones that need to be addressed soon.

At least once per year review the content of all the folders in your reference filing system and throw out items that are no longer relevant.

Once a week or less, review your "Projects", "Waiting For" and "Someday/Maybe" lists to see if anything in them needs to be addressed soon. This review can generate new items in the "Next Actions" list.

At least once per week, gather new inputs and add them to your system.

~4.6 mi @ ~14.4 min/mi

"Knows right answer when told!" Dawn Patrol characterizes authorities who are, unfortunately, sometimes more decisive-certain than nuanced-wise. We ramble, sharing without judging, in search of iced coffee. And small-world surprise: chlose cholleague Chiara materializes at Starbucks just as we arrive! Shared laughter ensues. We cut through a nursery and admire the mums and gourds.

"Say 'Experiment', not 'Focus Group', if you want to get approval these days." And so the phrase du jour evolves. Once upon a time it was "catastrophe theory" and "mobile missiles". Now it's "deep learning" and "blockchain". What's next?

"Take a higher perspective!" K-Rex suggests. K2 and Roadkill concur on the value of being more 'meta', and not fretting so much about the small stuff. We're blessed to be out here together — and nobody has fallen down lately, yay!

~6.5 mi @ ~14 min/mi

"Polygamy Porter — bring some home to the wives!" says the slogan for a Utah brew. Nowhere-Man recalls the "Go West Beer Fest" that he attended with Ken and Emaad, and what happened afterwards. (Trail Talk!) We try to enhance today's trackfile with a loop, fall prey to a dead-end street with no cut-through escape, and have to backtrack. A realistic great blue heron sculpture stands guard in a front-yard garden. Ken and Win meet us in the tunnel under the train tracks. Two big deer amble across Rock Creek Trail.

"Is that a gall?" - "Or a boll?" - "It looks like a giant brain!" We try to remember the term ("burl") for a canker-like growth on the side of a tree. Win discusses plans for playful pranks and wonders about the potential benefits of electrical muscle stimulation for healing injuries. ("Just don't attach the wires to your head!") Ken describes today's "Baldo" Sunday comic strip, with punchline "Libraries are theme parks for the mind!" Nowhere-Man's tie-dye-style skull shirt reads "Run or Die" with subscript "Singletrack Mind".

... You perceive the universe as a great flowing river of experience. ... You stand there transfixed, staring at this incessant activity, and your response is wondrous joy. It's all moving, dancing and full of life. ...

~22 mi @ ~15.5 min/mi

"UR ❤️'D" reads a sweet square sidewalk stencil on Strathmore Avenue. Crabby and Roadkill pause to frame it with their fresh kicks. We're finishing the postscript to a happy humid urban ramble with Tassie and K2 that includes:- 3 deer, a gaggle of geese, and at least 1 rabbit sighting- a midcourse ice pop stop at Chateau Spargeaux- "Cards Against Humanity" vocabulary lessons from the Game Night winner (don't ask!)- multiple new cut-throughs between neighborhood streets- Starbucks iced coffee (yay!)- mitzvah visits to Slow Twitch and Court Jester - the first to console the sick, the second to fetch Tassie's forgotten phone- helpful tips for newbies attending the upcoming 2019 Dopey Challenge- a fairy ring featuring an invisible meditative zen fairy seated amidst the mushrooms (and if she was invisible, how do we know she was there? don't ask!)

"She named many religious holidays - but they were all for the wrong religions!" Someone's five-year-old was far too ecumenical for a single-faith summer camp. Trail talk celebrates the growing openness of society in many dimensions of life. A front yard is dense in reflecting globes and other ornaments.

"That cricket is driving me crazy!" Crabby's bête noir is an inch long and lurks outside her bedroom, chirping amorous serenades before sunrise. K2 and Tassie get their 10 mile goal plus a 20% bonus; Crabby likewise overachieves her planned 18 miles. At the end of the trek, Häagen Dazs on a stick gets Roadkill's core temperature down. Thank you, C - and thanks to all for a lovely-therapeutic Saturday morning jaunt with friends!

~5.4 mi @ ~12.9 min/mi

"We can do anything!" says K2, ambiguously, as Dawn Patrol pauses at the first corner. Roadkill hears her remark as a delicious allusion to the Alesso song "Heroes (we could be)", with its lyrics about secret superpowers and running as a team through dark empty streets (see below). Or then again, maybe it's just a statement of openness about today's route? K-Rex chooses to turn left. Onward!

"I've stopped caring! Uh, no — I mean, it will turn out OK no matter what." Roadkill backpedals furiously re the latest re-org. We arrive at the Potomac Heritage Trail head and fight temptation to play hooky from morning meetings.

"Welcome! Here's a glass of water and two Tylenol!" K-Rex recalls her Mom's present to her Dad after he took the kids on a fishing expedition. Sometimes little ones are quite a headache; then, there are all the rewards. Final miles bring reminisces about homemade moon pies, chessboards of vanilla and chocolate cookies, and other oven delicacies. Yum!

"Heroes (we could be)" by Alesso

We go hide away in daylightWe go undercover when under sunGot a secret side in plain sightWhere the streets are emptyThat's where we run

Everyday people doEveryday things but ICan't be one of themI know you hear me nowWe are a different kindWe can do anything

~6.2 mi @ ~13.2 min/mi

"So am I a ghost?" K2 asks, after Mandy and K-Rex run through spiderwebs along the trail while following close behind her. Then we realize that she's wearing Brooks brand "Ghost" shoes. Hmmmm ... could this be the surprise-ending revelation for a thriller?

"Venting? That's exactly what Dawn Patrol is for!" The first week of school brings schedule chaos. Looming hurricane winds threaten to knock down trees, disrupt electricity, flood neighborhoods. We meander by flashlight and headlamp through quiet streets, and spy a deer, a fox, and a rabbit. Humidity is high; light drizzle begins.

"He was playing with my kids, and then walked home. Next thing I knew, fire trucks and ambulances pulled up in front of his house." Hours later Damon, a dear family friend, died. His memorial service was held just a few days ago. We share sorrows and memories, and give thanks for lives rich in love and caring.

~4.6 mi @ ~14.0 min/mi

"Yes, and...!" Dawn Patrol concurs on the value of a relentlessly positive attitude — in work, life, and everywhere else — during a drizzly-dark ramble featuring midcourse iced coffee from a chatty barista, three deer, a wet rabbit, and a big brown wood frog that hops along the path in McLean Central Park. We catch up on family news (all's well) and vow to practice better self-care. Currently one of us is recovering from a bad cold and one reports twinges in ITB, hip, hamstring, and various other places. Do as we say, not as we do?

"It takes 1 letter to say I, 4 letters to say Love, and 3 letters to say You. That's 143!" K2 recommends the new film "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" and describes Fred Rogers' secret way to say "I Love You". (He also tried to hold his weight at 143 pounds.) "The greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they're loved and capable of loving." Radical kindness, and a code language to express the two most important messages in the world: "Thank you." And, "I love you."

~13.1 mi @ ~9.0 min/mi

"Prune fingers!" Crabby holds her hands in front of the car heater vents to dry them post-race. Today's Parks Half Marathon is a soggy sprint through heavy showers that flood Rock Creek Trail. We high-step through ankle-deep puddles, splashing and laughing on our mission to get Craberella to the finish line in under 2 hours. And she makes it, for a monster PB improvement - yay!

"Many years ago on a trail run you said, 'Passing on your left, Sir' - and I still remember that!" Richard Szwerc tells Roadkill. Looking back, likely it was the 2011 "MCRRC Piece of Cake" 10k XC race. Today, though, it's Richard who does the passing. Caroline, official 1:55 target time leader, is friendly and establishes a solid pace from the start. Roadkill can't keep up and slips back after ~4 miles; Crabby hangs on longer to finish in an awesome ~1:57 - brava!

"I smell pizza!" Nowhere Man rides with Roadkill to the start and plans begin early for post-race recovery fuel. We thank C's husband Bill, who drives us to the start of the event. Near the finish line C's mom cheers us for the final dash, then takes photos. Crabby displays medals and hats; Roadkill is happy to get an ice pop. Right after finishing his calves cramp up ferociously.

"It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you / There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do / I bless the rains down in Africa ...", plays on the radio as Roadkill parks his car in the dark this morning. It's Weezer's cover of Toto's song "Africa" - and throughout today's rainy race it's on heavy rotation in the mental boom box. Unofficial results: 494th of ~1400 finishers, 349th of ~700 males, 4th of 19 males 65-69 years old, gun time 1:58:58, chip time 1:58:32 - after many years, sub-2 hours one more time!

~8.6 mi @ ~15.2 min/mi

"And that is Australian slang for ...", Tassie offers Down Under language lessons to Slow Twitch and Roadkill, who true to his trail name jaywalks to show faith in right-of-way regulations. Thankfully, today not fatal! On a cool and humid morning the Bethesda Trolley Trail takes three friends south in search of iced coffee. En route trail talk ensues. We practice role-playing selfish, arrogant, assertive characters - and faux-scold one another when normal self-deprecating and self-sacrificing tendencies surface. It's a day for shameless Mr Hyde, not diffident Dr Jekyll. We offer mutual reassurance that, though times are tough right now, we're all doing our best and the most important things will ultimately turn out OK. Yes!

"Remember crouching behind that wall?" - "There's the security camera I stood in front of!" - "At mile 60 we played the 'Would You Rather ...' game!" - "Do you know the ASL sign for that?" We share memories of local training runs and ultramarathon anecdotes. Slow Twitch recounts tales from last weekend's awesome-tough 71-mile odyssey around The Ring. Hibiscus flowers flaunt their beauty in roadside gardens.

"So do you guys have any info I can read if - hypothetically - I wanted to train for my first ultra? I mean, just for academic purposes?" young Tassie texts a few hours later. Uh-oh!

~3.7 mi @ ~12.8 min/mi

"Crickets!" notes Dr K-Rex — referring not to silence but to loud insect noises on a humid morn. A shadowy fox slips silently into the bushes. Dawn Patrol cuts through tiny Pimmit View Park and admires glowing blue lawn art as the sky brightens around a waning crescent moon. We mew at a cat watching us from its front porch perch.

"We're oozing energy today!" Nowhere Man notes. Or sweating it out? Four electrolyte caps, a salty gel, a bottle of Gatorade, and three pints of water result in 3+ lbs of weight loss. Rabbit count = 1. In the final mile neighborhood runner Ryan introduces himself as he dashes by.

~12.1 mi @ ~13.8 min/mi

"Who's blocking the Gateless Gate?" Roadkill stands athwart the entrance to the Japanese tea house in Brookside Gardens. Is this a Zen riddle? If there's no Self, then who's stopping whom?

"Let's visit the Butterflies!" Nowhere Man suggests. Alas, it's not open until later this morning, so we we walk around the outside of the conservatory and eye the exhibits there. On the way to the park we detour to get bottles of chilled PowerAde, thanks to kind Robin Z. Heat and humidity are oppressive. A deer steps aside for us to pass. We wonder how Slow Twitch and Court Jester can possibly survive The Ring, and learn later that they both somehow finished that 71 mile über-mountainous trail run. Awesome!

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Indeed — starting with the My Little Pony universe's "Friendship is Magic" show. Who would have thought of a children's TV series featuring "Five Elements of Friendship" — honesty, kindness, laughter, generosity, and loyalty — that combine into a sixth Element, "magic", each one personified by a pastel horse?

~16 mi @ ~13.8 min/mi

"Is my face red?!" Barry and Roadkill ask in embarrassment as they discover that they've gotten turned around on the one-dimensional Capital Crescent Trail and have gone half a mile in the wrong direction. Oops! Ken and Emaad finish the run and phone, concerned about the prodigal pair, to find out where we are. We speculate that the trail name "Nowhere Man" could fit Barry.

"Good morning, Mr Bun!" A rabbit scampers into the bushes as Roadkill does a solo preface trot to the group trek. Morning dawns warm and hyper-humid. On the way to Bethesda a florist's delivery van flashes lovely flowers on its flanks, and wooden bears guard a home on hilly Leland Street. Dear friends are in our thoughts as they run The Ring today, a 71-mile mountainous ultra on the Massanutten Trail.

~5.2 mi @ ~13.1 min/mi

"Chorus of crickets!" K-Rex comments, as Dawn Patrol surveys Pimmit Hills on a hyper-humid morning, serenaded by chirps. Headlamp comes out for the first time after a summer of early sunrises. At the Lemon Road Elementary School (Falls Church McLean Childrens Center) we pause at sad-beautiful memorial mosaics to a local child who lived only 2000-2009. A shadowy raccoon dashes across the street; a faster runner clears the cobwebs from the path ahead of us.

"I set that trap to capture your queen!" K-Rex reports on her son's metacognitive commentary during their recent chess games. Zombie-eyed kids shamble toward street corners to await their school buses.

~6.3 mi @ ~12.6 min/mi

"And she won her very first marathon!" Mandy tells of her awesome-strong triathlete sister-in-law who broke every rule and yet came out on top. We remind ourselves not to make comparisons with other people, or even with our past selves. Humidity hangs heavy as K-Rex leads the Dawn Patrol east through neighborhoods of hills, mansions, and friendly dog-walkers. We discuss Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership training and other courses aimed at making senior managers better. (Do they? Or do they just sharpen what was already there?) Fog hangs low over the elementary school playground, and dew-drenched grass wets our feet as we cut through to the condo complex. A deer nibbles honeysuckle blossoms at McLean High School.

Freeman Dyson, friend of Feynman and fellow physicist, explains in his review:

... The genre of serious comic-book literature was highly developed in Japan long before it appeared in the West. The Ottaviani-Myrick book is the best example of this genre that I have yet seen with text in English. Some Western readers commonly use the Japanese word manga to mean serious comic-book literature. According to one of my Japanese friends, this usage is wrong. The word manga means "idle picture" and is used in Japan to describe collections of trivial comic-book stories. The correct word for serious comic-book literature is gekiga, meaning "dramatic picture." The Feynman picture-book is a fine example of gekiga for Western readers.

Dyson concludes his essay on a personal note:

... He hated all hierarchies, and wanted no badge of superior academic status to come between him and his younger friends. He considered science to be a collective enterprise in which educating the young was as important as making personal discoveries. He put as much effort into his teaching as into his thinking.

He never showed the slightest resentment when I published some of his ideas before he did. He told me that he avoided disputes about priority in science by following a simple rule: "Always give the bastards more credit than they deserve." I have followed this rule myself. I find it remarkably effective for avoiding quarrels and making friends. A generous sharing of credit is the quickest way to build a healthy scientific community. In the end, Feynman's greatest contribution to science was not any particular discovery. His contribution was the creation of a new way of thinking that enabled a great multitude of students and colleagues, including me, to make their own discoveries.

~5.5 mi @ ~13.0 min/mi

"Thank you for clearing the spiderwebs for us!" Dawn Patrol salutes a handsome young gentleman who dashes ahead on the path by Georgetown Pike.

"You're welcome," he replies. "Actually I took care of them earlier, outbound." We start in gloom, running by cellphone glow in darker patches under trees.

"That could be a car advertisement!" K-Rex observes as a full moon sets, perfectly placed, above a mansion with a luxury auto parked in front. She and K2 spy three rabbits as we lope along neighborhood lanes.

... Mindfulness is cultivated by a gentle effort, by effortless effort. You cultivate mindfulness by constantly reminding yourself in a gentle way to maintain your awareness of whatever is happening right now. Persistence and a light touch are the secrets. Mindfulness is cultivated by constantly pulling oneself back to a state of awareness, gently, gently, gently. ...

~8.9 mi @ ~15.0 min/mi

"Ruh-Roh!" Barry translates Scooby-Doo dialect for clueless Roadkill. (Uh-Oh!) A speedy 3-year-old kid, chased by his hound, leads us along a narrow trail through the woods near Rock Creek. His father lags far behind shouting, "Romeo, Romeo!" as we add a bit of bonus mileage after a loop around Chevy Chase with Gayatri. On the way to rendezvous, pause for pics of Hello Kitty "Baby on Board" car decals. Give thanks for dawn, for friends, for beauty, for health.

~11.5 mi @ ~14 min/mi

"I'm hungry and they have no food in the house, only cups!" and "I do everything and you do nothing!" Cait and K2 recount complaints by exhausted little kids having meltdowns. Life is so tough sometimes! We join Santa, Ken, and Barry for part of a cool Saturday morning ramble. Plans take shape for the Disney Dopey Challenge race series in January. "What's your favorite Disney movie?" Roadkill names "Fight Club", and vows to be more adventurous, more open, more accepting. He dashes across a street to photograph wall art in downtown Bethesda.

"I started crying within the first 3 minutes and completely lost it by the end!" The new Mr Rogers movie, "Won't You Be My Neighbor", is reviewed and recommended. (Quick, buy stock in tissue companies!) At the opposite end of the nice-naughty spectrum, "DTF" is defined for the more innocent Dawn Patrol members in the context of OkCupid's recent ad campaign. (If you don't know, don't ask!)

"My neighbor's father was her Captain!" The USS Torsk is now a museum submarine in Baltimore's Inner Harbor; K2 saw it and, last weekend, so did Cait's family. Small world! Runkeeper's GPS glitches wildly during the journey through the Dalecarlia tunnel and awards us a bonus 2-minute mile.

Heavy going, marred pedagogically by poor choice of notation, too many typographical errors, and overly-complex examples — yet nonetheless Causal Inference in Statistics: A Primer by Judea Pearl, Madelyn Glymour, and Nicholas Jewell offers an introductory glimpse of how to think about cause and not just correlation in collections of data. Bayesian graphs are Giant Step #1, and midway through the journey, a glimpse:

...There is a powerful symbolic machinery, called the do-calculus, that allows analysis of such intricate structures. In fact, the do-calculus uncovers all causal effects that can be identified from a given graph. Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of this book ...

~5.4 mi @ ~14.2 min/mi

"No backsies!" calls K-Rex, when Roadkill tries to retract the word "walk" that, by Dawn Patrol Rule #7, mandates a walk-break. An amazingly cool August morning demands a long ramble. A beer truck makes a super-wide turn that rolls wheels all across the sidewalk.

"Cheetos, Chipwich, or Sponge Bob?" At a gas station convenience store we pause and, to the clerk's amusement, ponder the broad spectrum of salty, sugary, and icy snacks. A Marshall HS five-star logo calls for a selfie. Animal statues adorn a tiny fenced-in parking lot. Fragrant roses bloom. Drs K&K drop sad Roadkill off at a Metro station (alas, he has early meetings) and continue, GPS-less, for another dozen+ miles of adventure and fellowship.

~4.2 mi @ ~12.3 min/mi

"!!!!" Slip-skitter-slithering on a surprise layer of mud, in the dark, crossing under-construction Old Dominion Drive, startled Dawn Patrol members somehow manage not to fall, pause to catch breath, let pounding hearts recover. "Did you take ballet in your youth?" - "No, did you?" - "Maybe T'ai Chi helps balance?" - "Maybe we're just lucky!" We ramble to Starbucks for iced coffee. Trail talk suggests moving family time and self-care higher up on the list of priorities. There's great thankfulness for friendship, sharing-without-judging, and domestic peace as anniversaries loom. Sometimes it's vital just to say, "Yes, Dear!"

"Let's walk when we reach that ..." - "Too late, I heard the word 'walk' and I'm walking already!" Maybe alien-syntax verbs to the end of sentences moved should used be? K2 begins a psyop to get Roadkill to run the Disney Dopey Challenge in January 2019. Perhaps he should take his own advice and say "Yes, and...?"